Talkers Part 5

Mr. Watson very naturally began to feel rather curious to learn the meaning of these innuendoes. He did not know but all that Mr. Webster had _heard_ was perfectly correct; because he thought it quite possible for Mr. Good to satisfy them for a few weeks and not for years. He was a stranger among them, and when he should be more fully known it may be that he would not prove to be what he now seemed. He began to reason, and then to doubt and suspect.

"What have you heard of Mr. Good?" asked Mr. Watson.

"I will tell you. I am told that he was at Stukely only a few months, when the people resolved to dismiss him from their Church."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Watson, with astonishment.

"I have heard," said Mr. Webster, "that he is a quarrelsome kind of man, and always dunning for money; that he didn't preach well enough for them. In fact there is no end to the stories which they have to say about him."

"But it may be," said Watson, "that the fault was not in Mr. Good. There are faulty people, you know, as well as faulty ministers."

"But from what I hear the fault was all in Mr. Good. I am pretty well acquainted with the folk at Stukely."

"So you may be, and yet in this instance they may be more blamable than he. I have seen nothing as yet to create suspicion in respect to him. I think he is a good man and a good preacher. And if he continue as he has begun, there is the promise of great prosperity from his labours. We must take men as we find them, Mr. Webster; and whatever we might hear against them, we should believe them innocent until they are proved guilty. I have no doubt that a great proportion of your intelligence is scandal, created and set afloat by some person or persons with whom, perhaps, he had been more faithful than their sins would allow."

"I hope it may turn out so," said Mr. Webster; "but from all that I have heard I think you are mistaken in your view of him."

Mr. Watson would not listen any longer to Webster, but bid him "good morning." He could not, however, help thinking about what he had said: and although it did not affect his conduct towards his new minister, he could scarcely refrain an occasional thought that possibly there might be some truth in it. But he did not encourage it. Mr. Watson cherished the charity which "thinketh no evil."

But while Mr. Watson was incredulous of the stories of Webster, there were others belonging to the congregation whose minds were always open to receive ill rumours derogatory to others. Mr. News-seeker and Mr.

Reporter, with several of a similar cla.s.s, soon had interviews with Webster, when they heard that he had been to Stukely. He spoke to them more freely than he did to Mr. Watson, because they had willing ears and believing hearts. As soon as they had heard all he had to say, they went about their business, and almost every one they met the first thing they said was, "Mr. Webster, of Necham, has been to Stukely, the scene of Mr.

Good's last labours. He has heard strange things about him. If they are true, and there seems to be little doubt of them, he will not suit us, and the sooner we get rid of him the better." This statement excited curiosity at once, and the question was immediately put, "What does he say?"

"He says a great many things, I tell you," said Mr. Reporter.

"Well now," said Old Surmise, "do you know that I have had my suspicions several times as to the genuineness of our new preacher. My suspicions are now confirmed. I do not think I can hear him preach any more with pleasure."

"If you can, I can't, and I won't," said Mrs. Rash, in great excitement.

The matter now spread like the light. It got into everybody's ears, and came forth from their mouths much magnified. A great change came over the Church and congregation in regard to Mr. Good. Some said one thing and some said another. The balance, however, went against him. What was being said reached his ears, and he was astonished at the things he heard. It deeply affected him, as we may suppose. He observed a change in the congregation and in the feeling of many of the people towards him. In conversation one day with Mr. Watson, he asked him what he thought was the cause of the changed feeling in the Church towards him.

Mr. Watson told him what he had heard, but as he did not as yet believe any of the stories, he would like to hear Mr. Good's own statement of things. Mr. Good gave him a minute and faithful account of everything that had taken place between him and the Church at Stukely. It was just as Mr. Watson expected. He was confirmed in his confidence in Mr. Good, and used all his influence to suppress the scandal which was spreading, and to restore right feeling in the Church towards their Minister; but Mr. Watson was not equal to this. The fire had burnt too far and too deep to be quenched. The suspicion and prejudice excited could not be destroyed. Mr. Good wept over the state of things. He felt that the tide was too strong for him to stem. He saw that his usefulness was at an end so far as this Church was concerned. He resolved to give in his resignation, and to live a year or two in retirement from the ministry until the storm had swept away into the ocean of air.

A short time after Mr. Good had resigned his ministry, Mr. Webster met with Mr. Watson again.

"You have had fine times," he said, "in your Church with Mr. Good, haven't you?"

"What do you mean by 'fine times'?" asked Mr. Watson.

"O, why, he has been playing the same games with you as he did with the Church at Stukely, hasn't he?"

"Mr. Good has been playing no games with us, Mr. Webster, nor did he play any with the people at Stukely," said Mr. Watson, rather warmly.

"Well, I have been informed so, anyhow."

"So you may have been, Mr. Webster; but your information in this, as in that you brought from Stukely, is almost altogether fabulous. It is scandal which you hear and which you repeat. There is not a word of truth as you state matters. I have heard an account of the whole affair at Stukely from an authority which is as reliable as any you could possibly adduce. I have every reason for thinking that the parties who informed you are influenced by the basest malice and ill-humour. Mr.

Good stands as fair now before my eyes and the eyes of all decent people as he did the first day he came amongst us. It is only such as you, who delight in hearing and spreading scandal, that are prejudiced against him; and such, too, as are influenced by your libellous reports.

It is a shame, Mr. Webster, that you, a man who pretends to members.h.i.+p in a Christian Church, should be guilty of believing malicious reports respecting a Christian minister, and more particularly that you should spread them abroad in the very neighbourhood where he labours. This is a conduct far beneath a man of honour, of charity, and self-respect."

"Are you intending this lecture for me, Mr. Watson?" asked Webster, rather petulantly.

"I am, sir: and you deserve it, in much stronger language than I can use. You have been the means of blackening Mr. Good's character in this place, when it was all clean and unimpeachable. You have been the means of weakening his influence in the pulpit, and out of the pulpit. You have injured him, injured his wife and family; and the good man, through you, has been obliged to give in his resignation as our pastor."

"Through me, do you say, Mr. Watson?"

"Yes, sir, through you."

"How can that be?"

"It was you who brought the scandal into the neighbourhood: who told it to Newsman and Reporter and everybody you met with, until your scandal grew as mushrooms in every family of the congregation. It became the talk of all. Many kept from church. They suspected Mr. Good: more than this, they accused him in their conversation of many things inconsistent with a minister; and how could they receive benefit from his preaching, even if they went to hear him? Yes, sir, you have been the cause of the 'fine times,' as you call them, in our Church, and not Mr. Good."

"I am sorry for it."

"Well, sir, if you are sorry for it, repent of it; forsake the evil of your doing. Give up the itching you have for scandal. Do not repeat things upon mere rumour; you have done more injury in this one case than you will do good if you live to be a hundred years old. Remember, Mr.

Webster, what the Wise Man says, "He that uttereth slander is a fool."

Mr. Webster shrunk away from Mr. Watson as one condemned in his own conscience. He evidently felt the keen remarks thus made; and I hope he became a reformed man in this regard, during his future life.

VI.

_THE PLEONAST._

"This barren verbiage current among men."--TENNYSON.

The habit of this talker is to enc.u.mber his ideas with such a plethora of words as frequently prove fatal to their sense. Some of this cla.s.s employ fine words because they are fine, with perfect indifference to the signification: others do it from "that fastidiousness," as one says, "which makes some men walk on the highroad as if the whole business of their life was to keep their boots clean."

Mr. Hill was a man very much accustomed to talk in this way. He had read little, but had studied the dictionary with considerable diligence. His ideas were few and far between, but his words were many and diversified, long and hard, sometimes connected in the most absurd and ludicrous manner. Most of the illiterate who heard him thought he was highly educated and intelligent, while men of taste and judgment considered him greatly deficient in the first rudiments of correct speaking.

Mr. Hill and his friend Mr. Pope made a call one day last spring upon Squire Foster. As they came to the front door of his house Mr. Hill said to Mr. Pope,--

"Will you do me the exuberant honour of agitating the communicator of the ingress door, that the maid may receive the information that some attendant individuals are leisurely waiting at the exterior of the mansion to propose their interrogatories after the resident proprietor."

"Did you want me to pull the door bell for you?" asked Mr. Pope.

"If you have that extremely obliging state of mind, which will permit you to do that deed of exceeding condescension, I shall experience the deepest emotionals of unprecedented grat.i.tude," replied Mr. Hill.

"Why didn't you say, If you please? and have done with it," replied Mr.

Pope, in a manner which indicated impatience at his gibberish.

The servant appeared and opened the door.

"Will you have the propitiousness, the kindness to stay and communicate unto me whether Squire Foster is in his residence?" said Mr. Hill.

The girl looked vacant, not knowing what to make of his question.